New insights and plans for the future – results of the EECU Annual Conference
The 10th international conference of the Association “Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine” (EECU) “Covenant of Mayors: New Horizons and Opportunities” took place in Lutsk on 13-14 June 2016 in the framework of the EU Sustainable Energy Week.
In total, approximately 250 participants from Ukraine and abroad attended the conference, among them city mayors, deputies and energy managers from EECU member cities and Covenant of Mayors signatories, energy efficiency experts and representatives of international financial institutions and donor organizations, in particular, Sergiy Ladnyy, Sector Manager of the EU Delegation to Ukraine; Krzysztof Gierulski, Energy Efficiency Expert of the EU Support Group for Ukraine, Jan Edwin Waanders, Team Leader of the EU program “Covenant of Mayor – Demonstrative Projects” (CoM-DeP); Christoph Frering, Team Leader of the recently started EU-funded project "Covenant of Mayors-East 2" (CoM-East 2); Diana Korsakaite, Head of the USAID Project Municipal Energy Reform in Ukraine; Christiana Hageneder, Director of the GIZ project “Energy Efficiency in Municipalities”(USAID); Robert Kuenne, Director of the GIZ project “Establishment of Energy Agencies in Ukraine”; Yulia Shevchuk Program Director for Ukraine NEFCO, Sophia Lynn from IFC, Alexander Duleba, Director of the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association.
On the first day of the conference, Mykola Romaniuk, the Mayor of Lutsk signed the memorandum of cooperation with representatives of Lublin (Poland) and Brest (Belarus) within the “Energy Partnership and Networking” session. The aim of this cooperation is to jointly promote sustainable energy development in those municipalities. During the same session, Andriy Kyrchiv, Executive Director of the Association “Energy Efficient Cities of Ukraine” signed a similar memorandum with the European Association “Energy Cities” and the Communal Enterprise “Odessa Oblast Council Office for Regional Development”, confirming the common will for close cooperation and search for opportunities to support sustainable energy development of the EU and Ukrainian municipalities within the “Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy” initiative.
At the end of the first day the EECU conducted the General Assembly, where Andriy Kyrchiv, EECU Executive Director presented the report for activities performed in 2015 and plans for 2016. In addition, the representatives of the member cities unanimously accepted the applications of 16 new municipalities to join the EECU. At the same time, the kick-off meeting of the new EECU project “Civil Society in Covenant of Mayors” took place within a parallel session. The project is jointly implemented and co-funded by the EECU, the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, Poland, the Polish Association "Pomerania in the EU" and the Office of the Marshal of the Pomorskie Voivodeship.
On the second day of the conference, the participants had the opportunity to attend one of three parallel sessions. The CoM-DEP project organized a technical seminar “Street Lighting and Renovation of Buildings: Practical Experiences and Perspectives”, where the participants discussed the interim results of the ongoing demonstrative projects and the opportunities for enhancing their efficiency, as well as learned more about modern approaches and perspectives of their implementation in the framework of this project.
Moreover, the new EU-funded project supporting the Covenant of Mayors initiative in the Eastern Partnership countries was announced during the press-conference by the Team Leader Christoph Freiring from the Association “Energy Cities” (France). This project will be implemented in Ukraine by the national partner EECU and the first event within this project “Residential Sector – the Key Element of the Successful Implementation of the Covenant of Mayors Initiative” took place in the framework of the EECU Annual Conference. It gathered almost full conference hall of interested attendees, where experienced experts presented their successes and lessons learned in their work on busting the effectiveness of the condominium’s activities in current conditions and legal frames.
The third parallel event was organized by the EECU within “Civil Society in Covenant of Mayors” project that officially started on the previous day. It brought together representatives of 5 project cities from both city councils and non-government organizations, which will work together on developing and implementing new instruments for increasing the civil society involvement in the Covenant of Mayors.
Finally, all conference participants had the opportunity to visit the village Mychlyn, located not far from Lutsk with the population of approximately 500 inhabitants, where the Head of this village organized the complex renovation of the local sport club, installed a wind turbine with the capacity of 6 kW and a solar station with the capacity of 6.7 kW, all implemented in the framework of EU-funded cross-border projects.
The 10th Annual Conference of the EECU gathered a record number of participants both from all over Ukraine and other countries, who all expressed their highest interest in the discussed topics and were especially happy about the opportunity to network, exchange their experiences and know how as well as discuss the possibilities of future cooperation concerning sustainable energy development of local communities with the representatives of the donor institutions, potential partners and their colleagues from other cities in Ukraine and abroad.